Dan Boyle hopes four days between games will give his latest injury enough time to heal before the Sharks play again Thursday night.

But if that doesn't happen, Boyle said Monday, he has only himself — not Phoenix Coyotes forward Taylor Pyatt — to blame for the bang-bang collision that left him writhing on the ice in pain in the final seconds of San Jose's 2-1 loss Saturday night at Jobing.com Arena.

"It was my own fault," the Sharks defenseman said. "There were just a couple seconds left and out of frustration I kind of tried to counter-hit him and I put myself in a bad position. I pretty much did it to myself and it was a stupid play on my part."

Pyatt placed his hand on Boyle's shoulder as the two pursued the puck with three seconds left, but that wasn't a factor, according to Boyle, who said his skate toe-picked in a rut in the ice.

"There was nothing dirty about that hit," Boyle said. "He could have winked at me and I was falling regardless. It was just a mistake on my part."

The fact that Boyle blamed himself for the injury didn't make it any less painful.

"It was a 10 pain-wise," he said, "but two days later it's certainly come down a lot."

Boyle had to be helped off the ice because of what he and the team are describing only as a lower body injury. Monday he was walking a little gingerly, but with no visible limp.

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"It's a lot better than we thought it was when we left Phoenix," coach Todd McLellan said, labeling Boyle as "day-to-day."

The contact between Boyle and Pyatt generated much online chat room conversation among fans, many of them troubled by the fact other Sharks on the ice didn't try to pummel Pyatt.

In fact, McLellan initially wondered why that didn't happen, too.

"That was my reaction on the bench — how come nobody went after him?" he said. "But the guys said he just fell down into the boards. The group of players out there knew exactly what happened."

Boyle's defense partner, Douglas Murray, was one of those players.

"It didn't seem like a dirty play," said the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Murray, who was part of the scrum that formed at the final whistle, then dispersed without incident.

"And there's always next game if we want to take care of something."

Murray noted that players are aware of NHL rules that call for fines and suspensions for fighting in the last five minutes of a game. Incidents after a game carry even heavier penalties.

"If we're going to run around and do that, we're going to be missing bodies in the next game," Murray said.

"You can play tough and play smart and protect your teammates without being an idiot out there. "... It's not your backyard or the streets where you've got to settle something right away."

Forward Ryane Clowe said he only caught a glimpse of the play in which Boyle was hurt, but that you could tell by Pyatt's reaction when initially confronted that he didn't feel responsible.

"Guys were saying something to Pyatt and I could tell by his reactions — 'I didn't do anything, I didn't do anything' — that it wasn't intentional," Clowe said.

With the four days between games, the Sharks reassigned forwards Jamie McGinn and Frazer McLaren to their Worcester development team.

Whether both return for Thursday night's game against the Anaheim Ducks could depend on medical reports that McLellan expects to receive this week on injured players Jody Shelley and Brad Staubitz.

The coach said either could be in the lineup if given medical clearance.